Supporting LF

[johno]

My thoughts exactly. Under previous sets of rules, Mycenean foot were always worth taking with their supporting archers.

In FOG, they don't contribute enough for their points when compared to simply taking more spearmen. The light foot are more useful in their own units.

[zocco]

Would there be a problem with giving supporting LF the ability to shoot at impact against all comers? As-is they seem to be a bit of a waste of points, IMO.

I thought I'd drag this one back from the vault.

The lead off is "why has this not been fixed in V2". Looking at previous posts in this thread it seems that the general opinion is that supporting LF were not pulling their weight and doubly so compared to supporting MF shooters.

To my mind the simple solution to the problem is too allow (as Jhyronos mentionsabove) supporting LF to shoot at impact against all comers.

Ok so up comes the usual problems with this (or at least arguments put up against the above) namely.

1. Supporting LF are too small a number to count vs foot
2. They were put up for a specific problem (ie mounted).

Well lets have a look at these;

1. Supporting LF are too small a number to count vs foot

A. Not necessarily glasshopper !

Browsing the Empires of the Dragon the other day (a bad habit I know) I came across the following in the Song list (pg 107) to the effect that Song infantry consisted of 1 rank mixed polearms and 4 of shooters. These are classed as 1/2 Lt Sp/crossbow MF and 1/2 crossbow MF. So roughly 1 base of MF represents 2 ranks of missile troops.

Now looking at Goldsworthy's The Roman Army at War he mentions a couple of cases of Romans using LF support namely Arrians formation vs the Alans (pg 177) and Titus vs the Jews (pg 189 - note the Jewish troops in question were almost certainly foot soldiers as they were sallying from Jerusalem). In both cases the LF consisted of a single rank (but backed up by 1 and 3 extra ranks of mounted shooters respectively).

Now lets look at the ratios of ranks of troops to FOG bases. As in FOG LF lose 1 base per 2 it should be pretty obvious that if 2 ranks of shooters is equal to 1 base of MF then 1 base of LF is equal to 1 rank of shooters (as they are only half as effective as MF). In other words in both of the Roman examples given above the 1 rank of LF can be correctly represented in FOG by 1 base of LF (so in a standard 6 pack of Roman foot you'll have 4 HF and 2 LF bases).

So just to reiterate (in case I've lost anyone) using the ratio of shooters from the Song list it is possible to show that you only need a single rank of LF shooters for them to be represented in FOG.

2. They were put up for a specific problem (ie mounted).

This is a bit harder to quantify but I don't believe that is necessarily correct for the following reasons;

a) Vegetius (as per SOA version)
- mentions Scipio Africanus mingling select archers with each century when facing the Numantines and that Scipio thought he had no chance against them unless he did. The Numantines were ancient Spanish and don't seem to have had an unduly powerful cavalry arm (certainly compared to Carthaginians) so it seems more likely the LF were used mainly against the more numerous Numantine foot.
- mentions the use of darts by some Roman HF and states they' seem to supply the place of archers' (he also groups darts differently to the common missile weapons ie javelins and pila etc). I don't believe that anyone has suggested that darts (the equivalent of arrows according to Vegitus' statements above) were used purely against mounted troops or that they were not effective against enemy foot.

b) Elton (Warfare in Roman Europe)
- mentions an incident between 2 auxilia and a legion (ie all foot) which was stopped by Propicius running between the two skirmishing factions. Elton feels that this must have occured as they were exchanging archery as it would have been impossible to stop the fighting at a later stage.

So what is the difference between LF support shooting at foot compared to MF doing same. As far as I can see there is no difference (just that you need 2 bases of LF to generate the same amount of firepower as 1 base of MF). Apart from that there really is no difference - the opponents can be either foot or mounted. So there is no reason to differentiate between LF and MF support shooters as there is currently in the rules.

z.